


Such Great Heights

by beetle



Category: 50/50 (2011), Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception, post-50/50
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the inception_kink prompt: "Arthur's real name is Adam Lerner, and he is a cancer survivor. romance is optional, but OP would prefer it to be Arthur/Eames if anything. Maybe their next extraction mark is someone Adam knew or someone who is going through what he went through and Arthur's reluctant or something?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Great Heights

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Oh, no, I didn’t! (Oh, yes, I did!)  
> Notes: Set post-Inception by a few months, and post 50/50 by six years.

“Jesus, have some sugar with your coffee, man.”

Kyle cheerfully ignores Adam’s mild attempt at snark—as Adam had known he would—and equally cheerfully continues to load his triple Americano with some dentist’s kid’s college fund.

“So. How’re things going with that co-worker you fucked?”

Adam rolls his eyes. “I told you, there’s nothing going on there. It was just a one night-stand, nothing more. Post-job adrenaline and hormones. I mean, it was after that job where we nearly wound up dead . . . or worse,” Adam confides hesitantly, and Kyle finally quits with the sugar and looks up at him, brow furrowed.

“What in sweet fuck is worse than  _dead_?”

Adam looks down at his own coffee. Takes a sip, and says nothing, wishing he’d kept that particular detail to himself.

“Somehow, you managed not to mention this  _worse_ -than-death shit three months ago, dude. You just show up on my doorstep, wired and tired, fucking  _drunk_ , and covered in fucking _bruises_! When I ask what the fuck happened, you fucking shine me on with some bullshit about a car accident and nearly dying—“

“Well, there  _was_  an accident. And it  _did_  involve a car. And I  _did_  nearly die—“

“—why don’t you just tell me the  _truth_  for once?” Kyle leans in to whisper, his hazel eyes flashing. He nearly knocks over his coffee with his arm and Adam catches and moves it away automatically. Because this is how it is with them. Kyle doesn’t even notice the save, and Adam wouldn’t have it any other way. “For the past six years, you’ve been doing God-knows-what, going God-knows- _where_ , and each time you come back, you’re less and less like my best friend and more like some . . . government spook, or something. I can’t even get you to tell me about what the hell is going on in your life except when you’re drunk, and even then you somehow manage to leave out shit like why you come home beat-up sometimes. And that one time you showed up and stayed for, like, a  _day_ , then you were gone again for nearly four months—till you had your little ‘car accident’!”

Adam pretends to find his remaining half cup of coffee fascinating. “I told you, that was a delicate job—the client required total immersion in the project—“

“’Job’. ‘Project.’ Bullshit,” Kyle says flatly, sitting back in his chair, now. “We both know whatever you’re into these days is illegal as a motherfucker, so quit dancing around it and just  _tell_  me. _Talk to me_ , like you used to, man!”

Shaking his head, Adam finishes the coffee, semi-scalding though it is, in one long swallow. “I can’t. The less you know, the better.”

Now Kyle snorts. “What? Like, if you tell me, you’ll have to kill me?”

At this, Adam cracks a smile. “No. But there’re people out there who might. I’ve . . . made some enemies, you might say.” His eyes flick momentarily to Kyle’s, then away. Out the café’s picture window, to the rainy Seattle day.

“Enemies? Jesus, Adam, what the fuck are you  _into_? Who the fuck  _are_  you?”

“The same guy I always was,” Adam lies, shifting in his seat. Then he adds, somewhat more truthfully: “With some . . . modifications.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Kyle mutters. Out the window, a woman in red everything strolls by, catching his eye. Though not with the eager focus someone Kyle deems a “hottie” usually would.

“Look, man, I’m still the same guy I always was, underneath all this.” Adam waves at himself . . . at the Brooks Brothers attire—Armani is  _so_  been there, done that . . . strictly for pretentious upstarts, amateurs, and wannabes—the slicked back hair and yes, the serious, even forbidding expression that makes Kyle accuse him of having forgotten how to smile. “I just have a . . . sensitive job that requires travel and discretion. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Dude, we’ve been leaving it at that for six years!” Kyle laughs mirthlessly. “What I’ve never understood is why you— _you_ , Adam, of all people—are doing shit that’s not only highly illegal—don’t deny it—but dangerous. I mean, is it the money?” Kyle laughs again and waves a hand at Adam. “Because it looks like you’re rolling in it, now. Probably enough so that you could retire.”

Adam sighs and spreads his hands helplessly. “Not really. And the thing is . . . I like what I do. I don’t  _want_  to retire.”

“Yeah? Well, what if someone  _retires you_.” Kyle’s eyebrows quirk up as if he’s scored a point that Adam hasn't scored on himself a thousand times before. “You practically moved Heaven and Earth to fight your cancer, and now you’re risking your life on, for all I know, a daily basis!”

Shaking head, Adam smiles a little. “Not daily. Not even monthly. Believe it or not, most of the jobs I do are pretty routine, and don’t involve . . . physical danger. They’re even boring, in fact, and require more research than anything else.”

“Dude, but all it takes is one dangerous  _job_ , the  _wrong_  job, and you’re dead. My  _best friend_  is _dead_.” Kyle looks out the window again, the rain-tracks on the window reflecting on his scruffy cheeks like tears. "That's not fucking cool."

It makes Adam’s stomach clinch and his back twinge. Makes him want to give Kyle some secret part of himself, some hidden thing to ameliorate him, and make him feel less kept-in-the-dark.

“Hey, you wanna know something about me that I’ve never told  _anyone_ , but have been dying to get off my chest?” he asks brightly, in a patently obvious change of subject. But Kyle takes the bait with a sigh and sips his coffee.

“What?” he asks morosely. Adam winces, but forges on.

“That co-worker I told you I slept with?”

“Yeah? What about her?” A reproachful glance. “And color me surprised she isn’t need-to-know, like the rest of your life, these days.”

“Ha-ha, wiseass.” Adam clears his throat, squints out the window, and chooses his words carefully. “Anyway. She’s, uh, not. A she.”

When he meets Kyle’s startled gaze, he tries for a wry smile, but the smile just feels seasick.

“Whoa, you’re . . . banging a trannie?” Kyle leans in to whisper, his eyes gone round with shock and bemusement. “Holy chicks with dicks, Batman!”

“Uh . . . not exactly. . . .”

“What? She had the surgery?”

“No, ah . . . there hasn’t been any surgery. And she’s not a she in any way. She’s a he. A man. Like—full-on  _guy_.” Adam pauses. “And I’m pretty sure I’m at least sixty-eight percent gay.”

Kyle’s eyes look like they’re about to fall out of their sockets.

“And this . . . co-worker . . . wasn’t the first guy I’d ever been with. There was one before him, another coworker who . . . well, severed our working and personal relationship in a pretty final way.”

Kyle is still goggling at Adam who, feeling a stab of irritability, snaps: “Well? You wanted to know something about my super-secret life, and now you know.”

Shaking his head like a man who just woke up from a very strange dream, Kyle blinks and makes a weird face. “Uh—wow, dude. Seriously? Like—two-thirds gay?”

Adam shrugs defensively. “Maybe more. Maybe all-the-way gay. Lately I’ve kinda been noticing only . . . guys.”

“Whoa. Heavy.” Kyle blinks some more. “And you’re sure? I mean, there was Katherine—total fucking sweetheart—and that mega-bitch Rachael—“

“Dude, you gotta stop talking about her that way, she’s your fucking  _girlfriend_ , now.” Adam laughs, relief flowing through him at the change of subject and at Kyle's seeming acceptance of Adam's sexuality.

“She’s my serial-fuck, that’s all,” Kyle mutters, scowling. It makes him look like an enraged teddy bear, and Adam snorfles.

“Yeah, I think when it’s been almost two years, you’re technically a couple.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kyle’s obviously fighting a smile, now. “What do  _you_  know about it, gaylord?”

“Aww, you're just mad because the truth hurts, baby.” Adam laughs again and Kyle’s smile shines out, though he tries to combat it by intensifying the scowl. “Just—you know, invite me to the wedding. I have a speech prepared.”

“Smug little cocksucker.”

“Yeah, but enough about what  _I_  like.”

“Ew! TMI! TMI!” Kyle covers his ears and squinches his eyes shut. “La-la-la!”

Adam pries Kyle’s hands away from his ears and leans in. “If I told you how much I fantasize about cock in the course of my day—“

“Dude, I’m  _begging_  you not to.”

“—the look, the feel, and yes, the  _taste_ —“ Adam licks his lips as lasciviously as he’s ever seen in any porno.

“Augh! Augh!” Kyle shakes his head in denial and frees his hands, the better with which to re-cover his ears. “I don’t wanna hear about your dick fixation!”

This is said rather loudly, as evidenced by all the heads that turn their way. Adam closes his eyes for a moment then opens them, meeting the curious gazes of the other coffee lovers before turning his attention once more to Kyle, who’s wide-eyed, with one hand over his mouth.

“Sorry?” he apologizes in a small, muffled voice.

“One of these days, you’re going to learn to use your indoor voice,” Adam says mildly. His face, however, is almost beet-red.

*

Adam is woken out of a thin sleep already feeling under his pillows for the Mossberg .88.

There are footsteps coming up the stairs, making no attempt at stealth.

Naked, but for his favorite gun, Adam slithers silently out of bed, crouching on the floor and aiming at the door. The room is nearly dark, but for the stark moonlight shining in through his window. But that’s more than enough to see by. To see the door open and legs clad in light-colored slacks walk in. The light switch gets flicked on.

“Freeze, or I’ll blow out both your knee-caps,” Adam says conversationally. The legs stop a few feet from the bed.

“Hardly the welcome I was hoping for, darling, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. . . .”

Mouth dropping open, Adam—unwisely, he’ll think later—stands up, gun tracking up the intruder’s legs, then up a paisley clad torso, to a very familiar face, set in a small, knowing curve of a smile.

“ _Eames_?”

“None other than, Arthur-dear . . . or should I call you ‘Adam’?”

Adam glares, but clicks the safety on the Mossberg. He doesn’t, however, put it away.

“What are you doing here? How’d you find me?”

Eames snorts. “Bribed a customs agent to tell me the name on your passport, of course.”

Tempted to click the safety off again, Adam glares even harder. “Of course. What do you want? Gonna try to blackmail me?”

Eames puts a hand to his chest and looks aghast. “Arthur, I’m  _hurt_. Appalled, even, that you think I’d stoop to so low an act!”

“Eames, I know you’re wanted in several countries for just such a low act.”

“Well, yes, but I’d never resort to that with  _you_.” Eames tuts dismissively.

“Oh, really?” Adam asks, making his doubt plain. “And why is that?”

“Because I don’t  _need_  to blackmail you. I come armed with something far better than mere blackmail,” Eames says smugly, and Adam feels a stab of worry. A smug Eames is an Eames who possibly has the upper hand. Or thinks he does.

But Adam is willing to play along, since it’s the quickest way to get Eames out of his life and back to . . . wherever it is he hangs his hat, these days.

“And what is it you have, Mr. Eames?”

Instead of answering, for a few moments, Eames lets his gaze roam down and up Adam’s naked body, lingering pointedly at crotch-level.

Adam refuses to give Eames the satisfaction of blushing or covering himself up. Besides . . . it’s not as if he has anything Eames hasn’t seen before.

Finally, meeting Adam’s eyes again, Eames’s smile turns wry. “Well, besides an understandable, if inappropriate reaction to your nudity, I happen to have a job offer for you.”

Adam’s eyes narrow, but he slowly lowers the gun.

*

“I don’t understand how you Americans can drink this bagged shit and call it  _tea_ ,” Eames complains, sipping disdainfully at his mug of Lipton’s Tea.

Adam smiles a little and sits at the kitchen table with his own mug. “It was that or Lipton’s Iced Tea, nuked.”

Eames shudders.

“Aside from an indictment of my tea, what brings you here, when there’re plenty of other Pointmen out there who could get the job done?”

Eames places his mug on the kitchen table and smirks at Adam. “Well, let’s just say you have certain . . . assets that no other Pointman has—“ cue Eames’s campy leer. Adam rolls his eyes. “Also, you’re the best in your field, and this job requires the best. I’ve even got Ari as Architect and Yusuf as Chemist.” Eames's brow furrows. “Tried to get Cobb, but he’s—“

“Retired and completely out of the life. Doing his own thing,” Adam says gruffly, glossing over the fact that Cobb had cut them all, “Arthur Larkin” included, out of his life with surgical precision. Said surgery had hurt almost beyond belief, and still ached in a way neither Adam nor Arthur cared to explore. “So who’s your Extractor?”

Eames contrives to look modest. “That would be . . . me.”

Adam frowns. “But you’re a Forger.”

“I wasn’t always. Besides, a great Forger can wear many hats, and wear them well.”

“And I take it you fancy yourself such a Forger?”

Eames bows a little at the waist, nearly braining himself on the mug. Adam shakes his head.

“You’re incredible,” he says, uncertain as to whether he means that in a good way or not, and Eames leers again.

“I recall you telling me that, once upon a night.”

Rolling his eyes once more, Adam sips his tea and scalds his tongue and throat.

“Ow—fuck!” he spits, coughing. Through the sudden tears in his eyes he can see Eames watching him with amusement and something else. Something Adam hasn’t seen since the night of the inception. . . .

Then Eames is standing, skirting the table and coming to stand behind Adam. Large, warm, gentle hands settle on his shoulders.

“Breathe, darling. Cough, if you must, but remember to breathe,” Eames leans down to whisper. And Adam does cough some more, and tries to shake Eames’s hands off him. But it doesn’t work. The gentle weight turns into a firm clench, Eames’s thumbs pressing into the area just below his nape.

“Eames, what—“ Adam splutters, then moans as tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying releases. Coughing is forgotten as he simply breathes: in through his nose and out through his mouth . . . lather, rinse, repeat.

“My darling, you’re so  _tense_ ,” Eames notes, his breath warm and moist in Adam’s ear.

“I—I’m always tense. It’s my job to be tense.” Adam grits out, only to hear Eames chuckle, low and rich.

“You weren’t tense that night we shared. No,” Eames purrs, his lips brushing Adam’s ear lobe. “As I recall you were very . . . flexible . . . I might even say . . .  _bendy_.”

Adam turns his head slightly, and Eames’s lips brush his cheek like a kiss, coming to rest just shy of his mouth.

“Oh, my darling,” Eames sighs, then he’s kissing Adam’s mouth with a yearning sort of shyness Adam’s never had directed at himself before. He responds to it on instinct, and with the kind of passion he’d only felt once before in his entire life, and with the very person who’s inspiring it, now.

One of the hands on Adam’s shoulders slides around to his bare chest, tweaking one, then the other of his nipples, before wending their way further down. Into Adam’s sweatpants. . . .

Adam hisses as Eames’s hand closes around his cock, tight and just right. Eames’s thumb strokes across the very tip of his cock, alternately feather-light and fast, and rough and slow.

“Just one night . . . one perfect, unforgettable night,” Eames murmurs on Adam’s lips. “I’ve never experienced anything quite like you. Surely you must feel the same.”

Eames leans back to look into Adam’s eyes, his own somber and searching. Adam swallows, letting his own eyes fall shut under the onslaught of Eames’s hand. “It was, ah . . . pretty good, by my standards. . . .”

“Mm, damned by faint praise,” Eames kisses onto Adam’s lips, but he sounds playful. “Not to mention deserted after a night of delirious passion.” A soft sigh. “Why-ever did you leave me, Arthur?”

Adam opens his eyes. This close, all he can see are Eames’s blue-grey ones.

“I . . . because what we had was just a one night-thing. It—didn’t change anything between us . . . at least, I didn’t think it did. I mean—“

“Admit it, darling, you don’t know  _what_  you mean?” Eames asks bluntly, and Adam blushes, pulling away and glaring. He even removes Eames’s hand from his pants, though it’s almost impossible and rather painful to do so.

“Maybe you should just tell me what this job offer is, so I can say no, and you can get out.”

Eames sighs again. “Darling, I don’t take no for an answer. And trust me, once you hear the particulars, you’ll be  _begging_  me to get in on this.”

“I don’t beg.”

“All evidence to the contrary.” Eames nuzzles Adam’s cheek. And Adam allows it, his hand comes up to cup Eames’s cheek before he can think better of it. “See? Regardless of what you like to tell yourself, Adam, that night was more than just a one-off and it changed  _everything_.”

Adam draws in a deep breath that shudders on the way back out. “Don’t be so melodramatic. It was good, but it wasn’t the be-all, end-all.”

“Love, it was bloody  _transcendent_ , and you know it.” Eames’s hand steals back into Adam’s sweats and resumes its stroking. “Too good to ignore or overlook. Too good to happen only once.”

Adam swallows again, and despite the distraction of Eames’s hand, manages a brief, sardonic laugh. “Either you want to work with me, or you want to fuck me. Can’t have both.”

“Or either, if you had your way,” Eames snorts. “Why exactly do you object to seeing where this obvious chemistry between us goes? We fit together in other ways, besides the sexual, you know? I’d wager we make an unbeatable team in all the ways that matter.”

“Eames—“

“Yes, Adam?”

Adam shivers. Having Eames call him by his real name—not that Arthur isn’t, but he’s always gone by ‘Adam,' his middle name—is affecting enough. But having him say  _Adam_  in that warm, rich, husky voice is . . . is. . . .

“We can’t do this.” Though damned if he can remember why, at the moment.

“Oh, but I think you’ll find that we  _can_ ,” Eames says smugly. Then he’s removing his hand from Adam’s pants, and getting one arm under his knees and the other around his waist.

“What the  _fuck_?” Adam demands in a screechy voice as Eames scoops him up as if he weighs nothing. Reflexively, he grasps at Eames’s neck and flails as Eames marches them to the hallway, and thence the stairs. “Put me  _down_  Mr. Eames!”

Eames chuckles. “Perhaps you should call me Oliver.”

“I’ll call you a dead man, if—wait a second, your name is  _Oliver_?” Adam asks, clutching at Eames’s neck as they climb the stairs. “As in  _Twist_?”

“Oliver, as in  _Oliver Eames Wyndham-Barrie_.” Eames kisses Adam’s forehead as they reach the second floor landing. “It seems unfair of me to know your real name when you don’t know mine.”

Adam huffs as Eames gently kicks open the door to his bedroom. “I prefer Eames.”

“So do I, actually.” As they enter Adam’s room, Eames crosses the threshold with a sense of ironic gravity that makes Adam roll his eyes and glower. Then Eames is dumping him none-too-gently on his bed.

It’s jarring, to say the least, and by the time Adam opens his eyes, Eames is shrugging out of his mustard yellow jacket.

By the time he’s done unbuttoning his hideous shirt Adam, despite the grim frown he’s plastered on his face, can’t deny that he’s still attracted to Eames as powerfully as ever. That just the sight of the man’s body—that strong, well-defined chest and arms—is enough to make him hard. And Eames must know it, because Adam’s tenting out his sweatpants noticeably.

“Don’t scowl so, petal, you’ll get lines in that lovely, smooth skin,” Eames says, smiling. He toes off his shoes—expensive and tasteful, unlike the rest of his outfit—and approaches the bed. Adam’s breath catches in his throat and he scoots up the bed quickly.

“You just—stay back!” he commands, but Eames rolls his eyes and kneels on the foot of the bed.

“I don’t think that’s what you want, darling,” he says, eyeing Adam’s hard-on. Which Adam then covers with his hands. Laughing, Eames crawls up the bed slowly, like a cat stalking its prey. “I think you want me to come closer, and show you just how good we can be together.”

“No means  _no_ , Mr. Eames!”

“Ah, but you haven’t  _said_  no, have you?” Eames quirks an eyebrow and stops his stalking when he’s between Adam’s knees. He places his hands on said knees and pushes them farther apart, his hands then sliding down to Adam’s own, where they cover his erection.

“Eames, we can’t do this—“ Adam says—all but pleads as Eames takes his half-heartedly resisting hands and draws them away. “Look, this isn’t going to end well—“

“Who says it has to end at all?”

Adam blinks. Then shakes his head like a man waking up from a dream. “Uh, how about damn near every relationship that’s ever existed?”

Eames smiles that serene, all-knowing smile again. “But, darling,  _we’re_  not every relationship that’s ever existed. We’re  _Arthur and Eames_ , are we not?” The smile turns into a grin that makes Adam bristle for some reason.

“You say that like it means something.”

Instead of answering, Eames lays on the bed, so his head is between Adam’s legs. With one hand, he pushes Adam’s left leg as far out as it will go, and with the other he strokes Adam through the cloth of his sweats.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, looking Adam in the eye very seriously. “Tell me to stop, and I will. Tell me to leave, and you’ll never see me again . . . but you have to  _tell_  me, Adam.”

For long moments, Eames strokes and strokes, and for long moments, Adam stares and stares. When he blinks, his eyes are suspiciously shiny. But a second blink, and they’re just as dry as ever.

“Look, I’ve done . . .  _this_  before, Eames— _Oliver_. I let myself get involved with a member of my team once. An Architect. And we never talked about having an . . . exclusive relationship, but I wasn’t fucking anyone else and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t, either. I thought . . . well, it doesn’t really matter what I thought. In the end, he sold me out. Me and Cobb.” Adam smiles ruefully. “That’s how we got mixed up with Saito.”

Eames frowns a little and stops stroking. “And what happened to this Architect of yours?”

Adam looks away. At the lamp he’d left burning when he and Eames had gone down to the kitchen. At the Mossberg .88 he’d left on his dresser. At anything that isn’t Eames’s compassionate, concerned eyes. “He wound up stranded in Asia, trying to hide out from COBOL Engineering. They put a hit out on him.”

Eames nods. “Sounds like them. So he’s dead, now?”

Adam stares at his own reflection in the mirror above his dresser. He looks too young and too harried. “No . . . his debt to COBOL was squared a few months later and they called off the hit.”

“That’s . . . fortuitous. For him.” Adam can feel Eames’s eyes on him, too perceptive by half. “How much did it cost you, Adam?”

Narrowing his eyes until his reflection blurs, Adam says nothing for most of a minute. Then: “Pretty much everything I had saved up, and all the money I made from the inception.”

Eames whistles. “And was he grateful, your Architect? Did he swoon thankfully into your arms?” It’s asked so casually, Adam almost misses the note of jealousy in Eames’s voice.

“Nash doesn’t  _do_  swooning, Eames. And even if he did . . . I paid off his debt anonymously.” Adam glances at Eames and catches a look of pure surprise on the normally sanguine face. It makes Eames look younger than Adam had always supposed him to be. “I mean, I didn’t want him to feel beholden to me.”

“But he was, darling. He  _is_ ,” Eames corrects himself. Now, instead of jealousy, there’s a note of wonder in his voice. “You saved his treacherous arse from certain death when that’s the last thing he deserved. He should be groveling at your feet to get back in your good graces.”

Adam sighs. “Maybe. But that’s not what I wanted or why I did what I did.”

“Then why  _did_  you do it?”

Sighing again, Adam shrugs helplessly. “He betrayed me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him dead. I don’t condone what he did, but I  _understand_  why he did it. I understand what it is to be backed into a corner with death staring you in the eye. I know what it’s like to know it’s your time, but keep on fighting against the odds, which are  _stacked_  against you. And I know what it’s like to have a last minute miracle happen. I know what it’s like to be  _saved_ , and given a second chance.” He shrugs again. “I figured it was time to . . . pay it forward.”

Eames shakes his head, smiling just a little. There are still traces of wonder in that handsome face.

“You’re quite a marvelous person, Adam Lerner,” he says softly, then looks down at his hand, which has stilled on Adam’s cock, but hasn’t let go. “I meant what I said, you know, about stopping and leaving. I’ll do whatever you wish me to do. But  _I_  wish you’d consider letting me stay. And not just because I want to make love to you. Not just because I think I’ve found the job you’ve been waiting for. But because you see something in me—in  _us_ —that’s worth taking a chance on.”

“Eames,” Adam says, reaching out to caress Eames’s face. He has no idea what comes next—what he wants to  _say_  next, but the hopeful look in Eames’s eyes makes that shininess well up in his own, once more.

“Stay,” he says quietly, not breaking eye contact, though his face turns red. “Please stay, Oliver.”

Eames lets out a breath and grins, leaning into Adam’s touch. “For as long as you’ll have me, darling.” He leans up to kiss Adam tentatively, then less so when Adam’s arms wrap around his neck and pull him closer.

Soon, they’re prone on Adam’s bed, Eames grinding his own hard-on against Adam’s as they laugh and struggle and bash fingers trying to get each other’s pants down.

“I figured you’d be better at getting into my pants than this,” Adam breathes, still laughing. Eames  _hmphs_  and rolls them over, so that Adam is straddling his hips.

“Aha,” he says, sliding his hands down the back of the heretofore problematic sweatpants and squeezing Adam’s ass. “You were saying?”

“Cheater,” Adam murmurs, sucking a hickey into the stubble-y skin just below Eames’s jaw. “Now, tell me about this job of yours.”

“What— _now_?”

“It’s now, or during the afterglow.”

Eames makes a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a growl, his fingertip brushing Adam’s opening fleetingly.

“Fuck,” Adam breathes heavily, trying to push back on Eames’s finger despite the lack of preparation or lubrication. Eames, however, withdraws his finger.

“We’ll get there, lovely, I promise,” he kisses into Adam’s messy, ungelled hair. “In the meantime, the job . . . bottom line: an elderly, very wealthy man is dying. Of cancer.”

Startled, Adam sits back a little and looks at Eames, who makes a grimace of a smile. “It’s spinal schwannoma, like you had. There’s a 50/50 chance he’ll last out the year.”

Adam turns red, looking down at Eames’s chest. “You’ve done your research, Mr. Eames.”

“It wasn’t that hard to find out, petal,” Eames says gently, one hand sliding up to the small of Adam’s back before running the length of the scar with equally gentle fingers. Adam shivers. “At any rate, this man basically wants an extraction job performed on each of his three children, to help him decide which one he’s going to leave the bulk of his massive fortune to. Now,” Eames adds warningly. “There  _is_  a hitch: the client wants to be a Tourist in each extraction. He wants to see for himself what evils lurk in the hearts and minds of his children.”

“Huh.” Adam’s brow furrows. “That means research and deep background checks on three individuals in . . . what kind of time frame are you working with?”

“One month.”

“That doesn’t leave much time for shilly-shallying or dawdling,” Adam— _Arthur_  says, rearing his gelled head and turning Adam’s serious dark eyes even darker, as well as colder and more calculating. “Can you tell me this mystery-client’s name?”

“If you’re in, yeah.” Eames’s eyes turn just as calculating, though his hand on Adam’s back is still light and reassuring. “Unlike Cobb, I believe in maintaining full transparency with team members.”

“Leave Cobb out of this,” Adam says absently, thoughts whirling at the speed of light.

It’s been years since he had anything to do with anything or  _anyone_  cancer-related, and with good reason. Despite his own continued survival and remission, his friends and fellow chemo-patients hadn’t been so lucky. First Mitch, and then, not even a year later, Alan, had succumbed to their cancers, leaving Adam alone.

Not completely, of course. There was and always would be Kyle—and to a lesser extent Katherine—but they didn’t know what it was like to go  _through_  the process of . . .  _dying_. Of fighting against death even though hope was pretty much a sucker’s wager.

A wager Mitch and Alan had lost, leaving Adam to wonder . . .  _why me?_  Why did he, Adam, survive when two other men, two better men than he would ever be, lost their lives?

Adam has known for years he’d never have an answer, and it’d always left a bitter taste in his mouth—one that fine cognac and cigars could never quite disguise.

Now, Eames comes barging back into his life on the power of an apocalyptically good one night-stand, bearing the hope of something finer than just the memory of really good sex. He comes bearing a challenging, interesting new job in which the client—a wannabe-Tourist—has cancer. The same cancer Adam had had, once upon a time.

Adam’s literally spent years repressing the smell of sickness that’d once covered him like a death-shroud. He’s repressed the strange sense of camaraderie he’d felt with the visibly unwell and wounded. After all, with no one to share his relief and sheer, balls-out  _elation_  at still being alive, what was the point of remembering the struggle to stay alive? What was there but to live each day to its fullest, like it would be the last? What was there but the thrill of planning and executing successful mind-heists, and the random post-job fuck that occasionally accompanied it?

Only . . . Eames is turning out to be more than a random post-job fuck. Just like this wonderful new job is more than just a job.

Both are, it would seem, more personal than Adam is certain he likes.

Which is probably just the way Eames—who plays very dirty, indeed, when he wants the outcome to go his way badly enough—had planned it.

Taking in Eames’s now possessive gaze, Adam sighs irritably. “And I suppose this  _particular_  job just fell into your lap, right?”

Eames’s eyebrow quirks. “Why, I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“Uh-huh. Right. It’s not like you maybe used your unique, ahem, talents, to plant a suggestion in a dying old man’s mind about getting whatever answers he’s looking for through extraction.” Adam’s eyes narrow and Eames laughs merrily.

“What a vivid imagination you have, my dove!” he says, but doesn’t deny Adam’s accusation. More importantly, his face shows none of the offense—even fake offense—that one would think it should.

And with that Adam knows that, to some extent, he’s right about Eames’s scheming.

(It occurs to Adam then that there are unsuspected nadirs to Eames’s personality of which he may—thankfully—never plumb the true depths.)

“Well,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment. “Lord knows I could use the money and I’m not averse to the challenge. . . .”

“Then say yes, darling.” Eames’s eyes go unguarded for just a moment, but it’s long enough for Adam to make up his mind, reservations bedamned. “Please.”

_Ah, what the hell? In for a penny. . . ._  Adam grins Arthur’s hard, hooded grin. “Count me in.”

Eames grins right back, that charming, used car-salesman grin that’s about as genuine as a four dollar bill. “Jacob Alban.”

Adam’s eyes widen. “Well, fuck me, Freddy.”

Eames nods. “Word about his illness hasn’t spread, yet, but it will, soon enough. He’s starting to look rather . . . haggard. Some underpaid doctor or nurse will leak it to the media. Which’ll put a very bright spotlight on Alban and the very children we need to extract from.”

“So we might have even less than a month, all told.”

Eames nods again and Adam sits up, mentally pulling on the mantle of  _Arthur_ , ready to start digging and calling in favors from various contacts. Not to mention—

“No, Arthur,” Eames says gently, catching Arthur’s wrists. Startled once more, Arthur frowns.

“’No’? Eames, we’ve got work to do—”

“That, we have. But we’ll have  _tonight_  for ourselves, come Hell or high water.” He sits up, wrapping his arms around Arthur without letting go of Arthur’s wrists—effectively trapping them behind his back.

Arthur searches Eames’s eyes hard, then darts in and kisses him just as hard, his tongue exploring Eames’s mouth thoroughly and almost roughly. He even maneuvers himself so that he falls to the bed, Eames on top of him, without needing to break the hold Eames has on him.

“There’s lube in the drawer,” he says between kisses, wrapping his legs around Eames’s strong thighs. “Fuck me.”

“Eventually, yes,” Eames replies, pulling Arthur’s arms out from under them and wrapping them back around his neck. Arthur blinks . . . and is suddenly Adam once more, some of his hard-bitten urgency and demanding desire damped. “For now, I’d very much like to kiss you until we’re both breathless, then suck your gorgeous cock dry. Is that agreeable to you?”

Arthur—no,  _Adam_ , gobstruck, can only nod. Eagerly.

“Good.” Eames leans in for a kiss. The first of many.

*

Late morning finds Adam blinking his way to wakefulness wondering who in the  _hell_  is in his bed.

He knows it’s not Kyle—who has unfortunately used his spare key to not only get into Adam’s house after a night of drunken tom-catting, but to crawl into Adam’s bed (with Adam in it) and pass out—because there’s no obnoxious snoring. But whoever it is, is spooned up against Adam’s back, one hand on his hip, the other pillowing his head, and one knee insinuated between Adam’s thighs.

Thankfully, before he can reach for the Mossberg, he remembers last night, and Eames, and  _this morning_  and Eames, and, oh, yeah,  _Eames_ —

Adam smiles—quite unaware that it’s a dreamy smile, and stares out his window for a while, simply watching the light shift and flicker, and the leaves on the tree blow and wave in the breeze.

His body feels like a roadmap of humming, buzzing, and aching erogenous zones thanks, in no small part, to the man whose breathing is light and even against Adam’s nape.

Speaking of, the soft breathing on the nape of his neck becomes a soft, lingering kiss.

“I was wondering if you’d ever wake up,” Eames murmurs, his voice even huskier than usual. His kisses wind their way down Adam’s neck, to his shoulder. He pushes his hips forward into Adam’s and of course he’s hard. Of course his hand slides from Adam’s hip, to the morning wood that’s waiting to turn into a morning Sequoia.

Adam’s smile widens.

“You fucked me unconscious. If I took too long to wake up, it’s your fault.”

“Mmm . . . I accept full—“  _kiss_  “—responsibility—”  _nibble_  “—for your lengthy repose.”

Adam rolls over so he’s facing Eames, who pulls them together so they’re groin to groin. His eyes are sleepy, horny, and happy—fairly glowing with contentment. Adam justifiably feels about one million feet tall.

“Good morning, Mr. Eames.”

“And a bright good morning to you, too, Mr. Lerner.”

And one or the other of them leans in first, but the result is that their lips meet in a slow, rather sweet kiss.

Sort of.

“God, your morning breath is awful,” Adam murmurs. Eames snorts.

“Yours isn’t exactly a field of perfumed violets, either, dearest.”

“Touche.” Adam starts to sit up and Eames pulls him right back down, throwing a leg over Adam's.

“And where, exactly, do you think you’re going?” Eames rolls on top of Adam, whose eyebrows shoot up as Eames straddles his pelvis like a cowboy.

“Well, I  _was_  going to brush my teeth, so as not to continue offending your delicate sensibilities.”

Eames takes Adam’s hands in his own, kisses them then guides them to his cock. Adam doesn’t need any further urging to grasp and stroke. And he does so until Eames is groaning and thrusting into his grip, and squirming around against Adam’s cock.

“Oh, darling, you’re so bloody  _good_  at this. . . .”

“Every handjob feels like the best, if only because it’s the most recent.” Adam grins, but he can’t take his eyes off the man rocking and moaning above him. Eames is beautiful like this, every muscle strung taut, his skin tanned and lightly sheened with sweat.

Adam wants nothing more than to have that body pulse and clench around in. To hold him and keep him like a vise.

“Say, uh, Eames?” Adam traces the vein in Eames's cock down to his balls with one teasing finger.

“Yes, oh,  _yes_  darling?”

Tugging gently on Eames's balls, Adam licks his lip. “You ever, uh . . . you know . . . bottom?”

Eames slits his eyes open and smirks. “For the right man? Of course.”

Adam swallows. “Right. And, uh, would you say  _I_  might possibly be the—or  _a_  right—“

“Adam, my dearest,” Eames laughs suddenly. “What on Earth do you think I’ve been hinting at by sitting on you and wriggling around on your cock?”

Blinking, Adam turns practically vermillion. “I, uh . . . didn’t think you were doing that on purpose.”

Eames rolls his eyes. “Well, I was. I  _am_. All that’s left to you is to decide how you want me, then _take_  me.” He grinds down, hard and dirty, and Adam’s eyes flutter shut as he levers himself up—as much as he can under Eames’s weight—in a truncated thrust that slides his cock against Eames’s muscular ass.

“Fuck,” Adam breathes, placing his hands on Eames’s thighs and running them up and down. It takes him nearly a minute to collect himself and his thoughts. And then another minute to figure out what he wants. Through it all, Eames sits patiently, watching him with an amused smile.

Finally, Adam’s hands still and he looks Eames in the eyes.

“I want you to ride me,” he says, his own voice gone husky. “I want to watch you finger yourself open for me, watch the way your thighs quiver when you take me in, then watch you fuck yourself raw on my cock till you come.”

Eames’s eyes light up.

Still smirking, he reaches toward the night table. And the lube.

*

Adam listens to his shower running for a while, a smile on his face. A glance at his clock shows that it’s almost two in the afternoon.

Loathe though he is to do it, after a few minutes, he stretches and sits up, scratching at his chest. It’s covered in dried come and lube, and dotted with hickies.

He’s pretty gross, at the moment, and the realization couldn’t make him happier. He simply grins up at the ceiling and finds shapes in the water-stains.

Then the bathroom door opens to emit steam and a damp, naked, humming Eames. He's cheerfully, unabashedly off-key.

“Are you ever  _not_  hard?” Adam asks, laughing. Eames grins and rushes the bed, tackling Adam to it. Pinning him.

“When I’m around you? No,” Eames says, nuzzling Adam’s throat. “You’re like instant stiffener.”

“Aw, you say the sweetest things.”

“All the better to get into your knickers.” Eames pecks Adam’s lips then sits back on his heels, surveying Adam with a critical eye. “Not that you don’t look deliciously ravished, but go have a quick wash so I can take you out for brunch.” Eames frowns. “Assuming there’s anywhere good, nearby.”

“There’re a bunch of places, Eames, never you fear.” Adam sits up again, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He stands and stretches again, feeling Eames’s eyes on him like a full-body caress.

“Or perhaps I’ll keep you in bed all day. . . .” Eames muses, only half-jokingly. Maybe less. Adam glances over his shoulder.

“Man cannot live on protein alone, Oliver.”

And with that he strides—okay, hobbles a little—to the bathroom, Eames’s deep chuckles following him all the way.

Adam takes his time in the shower—thankfully Eames hasn’t used up all the hot water—torn between stroking off quickly, or maybe saving his hard-on for Eames to take care of.

In the end, his growling stomach decides him, and he strokes off to memories of the night before. He comes with his cock in hand, the fingers of his other hand up his ass, and the mental image of himself on his hands and knees for Eames. Afterwards, he sags against the wall of the shower, breathing hard and grinning like an idiot.

He lets the hot water, which is just beginning to go lukewarm, wash off the last of the soap and come before shutting the spigot off and opening the shower door. He’s just started drying himself off efficiently when the sound of voices from downstairs reaches him.

Mildly alarmed, he creeps out of the bathroom and bedroom, and to the top of the stairs, taking care to avoid all the creaky spots. When he gets to the landing, he leans against the wall and peers carefully down the stairs. All he can see is his hallway, and part of one jean-clad leg.

“—didn’t know he’d have, uh,  _company_  over,” a voice— _Kyle’s_  voice is saying uncomfortably. “We were supposed to grab lunch and see a movie today.”

_Shit!_  Adam thinks, mentally kicking himself for forgetting. He and Kyle almost always grab lunch and a movie together on Sundays when Adam’s in town. It’s become kind of a ritual.

“I’m sure in all the . . . hub-bub and foofaraw your plans simply slipped Arth—er, Adam’s mind,” Eames is saying smoothly, and Adam wonders if he’s still naked, talking to Kyle with his dick at half-attention. The thought is mortifying, and disturbingly hot. It makes Adam’s own spent dick think about getting hard again, sometime in the very near future.

“Uh, I guess . . . so . . . you and Adam . . . uh. . . .” Kyle laughs as if he’d rather be anywhere else but in Adam’s livingroom talking with a man Adam had, probably obviously, slept with. “You, uh, know each other?”

“Mm, quite well, in fact.” Adam can imagine the smug look that goes with that tone. “We’ve worked together on and off for several years.”

“Really? You’re one of Adam’s coworkers?” A new note of interest colors Kyle’s voice.

“Yes—and where’re my bloody manners—Oliver Wyndham-Barrie, at your service, Mr.—“

“Oh! Yeah, I’m Kyle Segel.” A pause in which, Adam presumes, hands are being shaken. “Adam and I used to work together—and play together, I guess—“

“Is that so?” Eames’s voice is far too calm and casual.

“Yep. We still do, though not as much as I like with him out of town on business so much and you totally have the wrong idea, judging by the, heh, really kinda scary look on your face. Look, when I said ‘play together,’ I meant in a strictly-friends capacity. Bromance with an emphasis on the ‘bro,’ bro,” Kyle babbles, and the jean-clad leg backs up a couple of steps so Adam can see the whole leg, part of an arm, and some torso to boot. “Adam and I have never . . .  _played_ , in _that_  way.”

“Hmm. And what way would that be?” Still that too-calm, too-casual voice, but it sounds more amused now, than dangerous. As if Eames is having a bit of fun very much at Kyle’s expense.

“You know, in the . . . the bedroom-way.” Another uncomfortable laugh. “I mean, I’m just assuming that’s how you and Adam roll what with you being so, uh,  _naked_  and all.”

_Shit!_  Adam thinks again, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose and prays for the Earth to open up and swallow all three of them.

“Well, you know what they say about assumptions, mate.” Eames sounds positively chummy, now. “Anyway, he’s in the shower. Or was—“ and fuck, Eames  _knows_  Adam’s listening, and he’s putting on a show. The bastard. “—he should be down in a few minutes.”

“Ah. Good.”

Silence spins out, then, awkward and long. Another quick peek shows Kyle rocking back and forth on heel and toe. A throat is cleared—probably also Kyle’s—and the leg judders and jives.

Adam sighs and shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose again, briefly. Then he creeps slowly back down the hall, to his bedroom.

“So . . . Oliver, right? Does anyone ever call you ‘Ollie’?” Floats up the stairs and down the hall in Kyle’s jocular voice and Adam pauses to wince. “Like 'Ollie-Ollie-oxen-free!'”

“No one ever calls me that,” Eames says flatly.

“Ah.” More uncomfortable silence. At least till Eames breaks it rather grudgingly:

“Everyone calls me Eames. You might as well, too.”

“So noted, uh . . . Eames.” Surprised, Adam huffs out a silent breath. He doesn’t know what, if anything, Eames telling Kyle his handle means, but he thinks— _thinks_ —it’s a good sign. “So what is it, exactly, that you and Adam do?”

“Well, if I told you that, I’d have to kill you, wouldn’t I?”

“Ah—ah-hah-hah!” Kyle laughs again, sounding genuinely tickled. Probably because he has no idea that, despite Eames’s polite chuckle, Eames isn’t joking.

Adam quietly shuts the door to his bedroom and leans against it, wondering what in hell he’s gotten himself into, and if he should be trying to find a way out.

But then he remembers Eames’s hands on him, gentle and rough at turns, and always at the right moment. He remembers Eames kissing and licking up and down the length of his scar and murmuring: “You’re a miracle.  _My_  miracle.”

He remembers all that and smiles. Cracks the door open again just in time to hear Eames’s smug purr.

“—don’t know how long he’s been ‘playing for the home team,’ as you say, but considering the state of my arse, he’s been pitching for it for at least the past few hours.”

Adam closes the door again on Kyle’s uncomfortable-laugh.

He sits on the edge of his bed, face buried in his hands, and laughs . . . till his face is red and his eyes are streaming.

Eames—still naked, still semi-hard—finds him that way ten minutes later.

“Darling, what  _are_  you laughing it?” he demands, hands on bare hips, a stern look on his face. “Your mate’s here, and he’s hungry, and so’m I. Let’s get dressed and find some sustenance.”

Adam wipes his face, but can’t stop giggling. Not even when Eames rolls his eyes and sits next to him, cupping his face tenderly and kissing him.

“Silly boy,” he murmurs fondly, his hand sliding down to Adam’s neck and collarbone. “My silly, beautiful boy.”

“You perv, I’m almost thirty-four,” Adam snorts, letting Eames push him down to the bed and roll on top of him. “And if we don’t hurry up and get less naked, we’re gonna wind up screwing, and Kyle’s going to run out of the house screaming when he hears us.”

Eames uses his knee to push Adam’s legs apart and grinds their cocks together.

“Perfect, that means I’ll have you all to myself.”

They kiss . . . and kiss . . . and kiss and rub against each, legs tangling, hands petting and squeezing. At least until a gruff voice drifts up from below:

“What the hell’s taking you guys so long? I'm starving!”

Adam and Eames freeze and look at each other. Then at the open bedroom door.

“I’m coming upstairs, now, and I hope I don’t see anything gross or . . . gross.”

Eames sighs.

“Really . . . should we stop?” he whispers.

“Nah, he’s bluffing,” Adam dismisses, pulling Eames down into another kiss.

Eames has just pushed Adam’s right leg up in the air, and is lining his cock up to begin the slow, mostly dry push  _inward_  when the stairs begin to creak.

Adam and Eames pause and look at each other again. This time, Adam sighs.

“Since when do you cock-block me, man?” he calls, and the footsteps pause near the landing. He can see Kyle’s hesitant shadow stretching down the hallway wall. He can also feel the head of Eames’s cock push insistently past the first tight ring of muscle, and his breath catches in a hissing gasp.

“Ugh—you’re joking, right?” Kyle sounds horrified.

“Not even a little!” Adam replies in a voice that’s slightly too high and breathless. He smiles up into Eames’s amused eyes. “Enter at your own risk!”

"I do believe I will," Eames whispers, kissing Adam's lips lightly.

Silence from the hall, in which Eames bites Adam’s ear lobe and continues to enter him in a series of slow, shallow thrusts. Adam moans, quite a bit louder than he means to.

More silence. Then:

“So, I’m just gonna wait for you guys on the porch.”

“Good idea, mate,” Eames calls, swiveling his hips a little, but it’s enough to drive another not-so-quiet moan from Adam’s lips. “We’ll be down presently.”

“Ten-four.”

The footsteps quickly retreat. A moment later the front door opens and slams shut.

Adam and Eames look into each other’s eyes then start laughing. That is, until Eames steals a kiss and drives himself home with one long, quick thrust that makes Adam wail.

Eames pets and kisses Adam while he gets used to the sudden fullness. “Think he heard  _that_?”

“Pretty sure he did,” Adam exhales, bearing down on Eames’s cock with his used and abused muscles.

“Good.”

Huffing at Eames’s smug tone, Adam takes Eames’s hand and links their fingers together, searching desire-darkened eyes.

“So, we're really gonna give this the ol’ college try, huh?” he asks quietly, uncertain whether he means their potential relationship, the job, or both.

“I think we’re going to do more than that, petal.” Eames’s smile is unusually solemn as he slowly withdraws from Adam’s tightly clenching body. “In fact, I think we’re going to do great things together . . . starting, of course, with  _this_ —“

And then he proceeds to make Adam  _wail_.

 


End file.
